Monthly Archives: October 2015

With Halloween nearly upon us I hope your preparations are going well. Whether you are young or old, Halloween is enjoyed by many people all over of the world.

If this year you do not have the time, or just simply can’t be bothered with dressing up, then don’t worry help is at hand! Here at ReClick Photo I can give you a spook-tacular digital makeover that you can share on your favourite social media sites or to hang on your wall at home to scare your family and friends! let’s take a look at an example of what I can do.

Girl before digital Halloween makeover

Here we have a free to use public domain image from http://www.pixabay.com. As you can see the subject is not really evoking the spirit of Halloween. What can I do to remedy this situation? Here is what I want to achieve with this project:

Would you like to see the finished result before I explained how I managed to achieved it?

Girl after Halloween makeover.

What do you think? Certainly a transformation! Here is how I achieved it:

Firstly I reduced the size of some the features of the girls face, i.e. the nose, point of her chin, etc. to make them look sharper.

I then lengthened her chin and pushed in the sides of her face, making a more sculptured face.

To achieve a more witch-like appearance, I then started to recolour certain areas of the image such as her face, arms, hands, and hair in various shades of green, grey and black.

To brake up the smoothness of the subjects skin I applied a little texture to it to give the illusion of blemishes, spots, etc.

For the eyes to really stand out, I decided to recolour them a bright red so they would contrast strongly with the green of the skin.

Finally I flipped the image so it would be a mirror image of the original. The reason to do so was so I could use both the original and retouched images together, giving an impression of good and evil.

Would you like to see the finished comparison image?

Halloween makeover before and after comparison.

In order to look totally fang-tastic for Halloween why not send me an image of your choice for a free quote. Starting from as little as £9.99, you can have your spook-tacular image in time for Oct 31st.

Sadly sometimes the image that you want to capture simply does not exist. So what can we do? Just take the best photograph you can at the time and with a little digital tweaking you will get the image you want. Let’s take a look at an example of what I am talking about.

Whilst at sea, when both lighthouses are in alignment ( the light of the Upper lighthouse positioned directly above the light of The Beach Lighthouse) then as long as a vessel follows the guideline projected by the lights then they will enter the Wyre Estuary safely.

As you can see from the image above there are many elements which are taking the focus away from the lighthouse itself, so in true ReClick Photo fashion I will work my magic in transforming the image into the best it can be. Would you like to see the finished result before I explain how I achieved it?

View of the Pharos Lighthouse Fleetwood

What do you think? I hope you are agree with me that the image has been greatly improved. As you can see there has been a number of elements removed, if you don’t want to play a game of spot the difference here is a list of what has been removed:

The lightning conductor on the lighthouse.

An unused bracket of the railing at the top of the lighthouse.

The sign post.

The overhead tram lines.

The telephone posts.

The flags and flagpoles.

A few imperfections, and damage to the sandstone of the lighthouse.

To continue the retouching process further I turned my attention to the emphasising the main subject , the lighthouse, itself. To do this, I worked on the light and shade. To draw attention to the Lighthouse I lightened it before darkening the outer edges of the image in order to frame it. To finish, I carried out a few further adjustments such as curves, brightness/contrast, exposure etc. Let’s take a look at the before and after comparison to see the how much difference the retouching process has made.

The Pharos Lighthouse before and after retouching.

Whilst things such as road signs, telephone posts, and cables are vital in the real world, when it comes to a photograph thankfully you can remove them without causing any devastating effects.

If you have any images like the one featured in this blog post that you would like to be given the same ReClick Photo treatment, then please contact me at info@reclickphoto.co.uk. For more information about ReClick Photo and the services I provide please visit my website at http://www.reclickphoto.co.uk.

To see the other images I took whilst visiting Fleetwood please visit my 500px page by clicking here – http://bit.ly/1GeSMv2. If you like them you can license them!

Thanks for reading!

Hugh at ReClick Photo.

P.S. Remember its not to late to enter our Halloween Prize Give-away. For details on how to enter please visit http://bit.ly/1P343GU. Good Luck!

Our family archives of precious objects and old photographs are a treasure trove of memories from yesteryear. Today I would like to share another photo from our family albums with you so I can show you what I can do here at ReClick Photo to bring it to life. let’s take a look.

The Photograph of My Gran and Grandpa before Recolouring.

Out of all the images we have, this is one of my favourites of my Gran and Grandpa. It really captures the spirit of them both, especially my grandpa. He is, and always has been a bit of a character. When looking at old photos of himself he usually points at himself and says “who’s that handsome chap, he looks a lot like Robert Mitchum.” In truth, I think he bears a strong resemblance to the British comic actor Terry Scott! This image was taken in the 1970’s at one of my Grandpas works parties held by Andrew Barclay Sons & Co, the locomotive builder and engineering workshop in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire.

Many times I find myself taking a picture and turning it into black and white because I feel that the image is best suited without any colour. Today, colour photography is the norm, so when it comes to recolouring images it is only usually older photographs that need to be done. In my opinion, not all images are suitable for effective recolouring. Please don’t misunderstand me, you can recolour any image you please, but for it to be truly effective some black and white images are better candidates than others. I have seen many attempts of recolouring, sadly not all favourable. It can be a lengthy process, but when completed successfully it can be well worth the time and effort put into it. When looking again at this image I felt that the expressions on both of their faces are really quite colourful, even in black in white! This image is, in my eyes, is a prime candidate for recolouring. Would you like to see the finished result before I explained how I achieved it?

The Photograph of My Gran and Grandpa after Recolouring.

What do you think? Personally I think it really highlights the sense of fun that you can see on my Gran and Grandpas faces. So what steps did I have to take to achieve this result?

When working with any image editing software, work like this is always carried out on a series of layers. The most important one in this project is the colour adjustment layer.

To begin I cleaned up the original image by removing the dust, scratches, marks etc.

I then selected an other image to use as a colour reference so I could recolour the skin tones effectively. Recolouring the skin is the most important aspect of recolouring an image with people in it , because if peoples skin doesn’t look right then no matter how hard you work at the image the rest of it will not look right.

After retouching the skin, I move on to the hair, again drawing reference from the colour reference image.

My attention then went to the clothing. In some case recolouring clothing can be quite simple, but as you can see in this case it was a laborious task. When clothes have a pattern each part of that pattern needs to be recoloured separately. As you can imagine to recolour this highly patterned skirt took time. Needless to say I did have to stop for a break and a cup of tea halfway through as I could feel my eyes going a little fuzzy! but I hope you agree, it was definitely worth the effort.

Now the hardest part was over, the only thing left to do was the background. Sadly I didn’t know what the colour of the flooring or the wall was, so I decided to use colours that would complement the other elements of the image.

To finish the image I applied a few adjustment such as brightness/contrast, vibrance, levels etc.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about this recolouring project. If you have any treasured photographs that you would like to recoloured just like the image featured in this post please email me with your image to info@reclickphoto.co.uk for a free no obligation quote. recolouring old images can be a great gift idea for family and friends, so why not treat someone you know! Here at ReClick Photo I want to give you the image that your treasured memories truly deserve. For more information about ReClick Photo and the work that I do please visit the website at http://www.reclickphoto.co.uk.

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Would you like a spook-tacular digital makeover in order to look fang-tastic for Halloween? Look no further because ReClick Photo is your digital one-stop-shop for giving you the perfect Halloween ready image. So whether it’s to post on your favourite social media site, or to hang on your wall at home to scare your family and friends, please check out our new Halloween makeover service page on the website at http://www.reclickphoto.co.uk. Prices start from as little as £9.99!

To celebrate the launch of this new service, as well as the website being decorated to go with the theme, I am glad to announce that I am giving away one free Halloween digital makeover to one lucky Winner. All you have to do is to follows ReClick Photo on Facebook and/or Twitter to be entered into the prize draw. The lucky winner will be announced on Friday 23th October 2015. For full terms and conditions please take a look at the prize giveaway page. Please retweet and share to your friends and followers. Good Luck!! So please head over to the website to enter and join in the fun!